Response: Morally Obligatory Information?

In response to Corey Sloane's post "The Moral Vehicle of Literature" (April 11, 2012):

I agree that literature is a useful medium through which minority groups can communicate their viewpoints.  However, due to the optional anonymity of authors, literature (about characters belonging to minority groups) can also be a way for members of majorities to inaccurately portray minority groups and thus actually contribute to their oppressive or marginalised situations.  As such, I wonder if one say that an author of books regarding a minority group, who actually belongs to that group, has a moral obligation to inform readers of their affiliation with the group, in order to help legitimatise their work and perhaps discredit the work of authors who portray the group badly.

On reflection, however, I do not think that such information is necessary.  Because of the flexibility of authorial personas, authors who wish to portray members of minority groups badly can simply pretend to belong to those groups, rendering the information useless.  Also, members of majority groups may sometimes be quite able to portray minority group members accurately, due to acquaintance or research, and invalidating their writings simply because they do not belong to a particular group is, I think, wrong.